Posted on 11/16/2017 7:04:37 AM PST by Gamecock
This is a sad but predictable result of a pastor who leads a church to apostatize from the Christian faith. Walking away from Jesus is not a catalyst for church growth. On the contrary, it is the catalyst for church death. Believers in such churches will eventually leave, and those that remain to embrace the error will be an unfaithful remnant. It may be a gathering of people, but it will not be a gathering of born-again people and will not therefore be a church of the Lord Jesus.
Two years ago TIME magazine highlighted an evangelical “megachurch” whose pastor had led the congregation to affirm gay marriage and to welcome LGBT persons as full members of the church (see the sermon announcement above from two years ago). The story made quite a splash at the time, even though many pointed out that the church wasn’t really a megachurch and could hardly be seen as a bellwether of things to come.
Yesterday, the website “Juicy Ecumenism” reported that the church has cratered over the last two years. From the report:
A once-large Nashville-area Evangelical congregation that made headlines after its pastor announced that the church would conduct same-sex marriages is selling its campus and relocating to rented space.
After his announcement of LGBT support in 2015, Pastor Stan Mitchell of GracePointe Church in Franklin, Tennessee was profiled in Time magazine. But what was a much sought-after sign of Evangelical movement towards LGBT affirmation may have been wishful thinking on the part of cultural progressives pouring money into programs that aim to shift Evangelical pastors’ views on sexuality…
Changes ultimately were not limited to teachings on sexuality. In August, the Nashville Star reported that GracePointe would share space with another progressive congregation, now describing itself as “unapologetically interfaith”.
A visitor to a recent service counted approximately 240 attendees, a fraction of the number that once participated.
“The public embrace of LGBTQI people and same-sex relationships by Mitchell and GracePointe Church in 2015 has led to a major decline in attendance and revenue,” Out & About Nashville reported in September. “The half-empty lot bears evidence of a minor exodus over two years of congregants.”
GracePointe has listed the 12,000-square-foot modernist chapel and 22 acre property where the church has met since 2009. The property, initially listed in February at $7.5 million, was dropped to $5.7 million in March and $4.9 million in April according to real estate records. The property is now under contract according to the Franklin Patch, and the sale could finalize by year’s end.
The loss of more than half of the congregation has hurt GracePointe’s financial stability, Mitchell told Out & About Nashville. The congregation is hoping the sale of the church property, along with budget and staff cutbacks, will improve finances.
This is a sad but predictable result of a pastor who leads a church to apostatize from the Christian faith. Walking away from Jesus is not a catalyst for church growth. On the contrary, it is the catalyst for church death. Believers in such churches will eventually leave, and those that remain to embrace the error will be an unfaithful remnant. It may be a gathering of people, but it will not be a gathering of born-again people and will not therefore be a church of the Lord Jesus.
I wrote about this church two years ago after the TIME magazine report. What I wrote then, I still believe to be true:
Gay marriage and homosexuality are going to become the occasion for a great winnowing of the evangelical ranks, and we are going to be seeing a lot of that in days to come. Those churches that have been evangelical in name only and that have not been conducting themselves with biblical integrity are going to get exposed on this issue. Many of these “evangelical” churches will buckle under pressure (like GracePointe) and will be known as “formerly evangelical” in very short order. For that reason, GracePointe’s falling away is not the future of evangelicalism but of former evangelicalism. And that is a big difference.
Denny Burk is Associate Professor of New Testament and Dean of Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This article first appeared on his blog and is used with permission.
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It met Ben Dover and lost
Oh?
PCUSA and UMC are both declining rapidly over this issue.
LOL
Parents don’t want their children around sex perverts, at church or anywhere else.
Once the Spirit departs a church, there is nothing left to do but call the realtors.
One thing: the Time article says they were at 800 to 1000 members before; that’s not exactly a megachurch.
Its always instructive to see whose compass is tuned to scripture and the Holy Spirit and whose is tuned to the surrounding culture. Even good people find themselves splitting the difference, and wind up in a spiritual cul-de-sac without noticing it, their faith stripped of its power.
We’re supposed to be God’s conduits to the surrounding society, we are not to be apologists for that society. Some people miss the difference, but the difference is all the difference in the world.
Serves them right, turn to perversion, you lose.
What a great story, thanks for posting and cheering me up for the day.
I love a good Suicide Story!
I sure hope parents in California take notice and begin a Massive Withdrawl of Students forcing the School System to COLLAPSE!!
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3605152/posts
California elementary schools to use pro-LGBT history textbooks
If Hillary Clinton had become President every church and synagogue (but not mosque) that refused to perform same-sex marriages would have lost it’s tax exempt status.
Hey pastor how’d that rainbow thingy work out for you?
The left has infiltrated almost all the institutions of American life. Once in, they kill them from the inside, much like parasites that live in the host, and destroy them.
ANY “church” catering to this will crater. The Episcopal Church is a great example ... but they don’t learn. Organized religion seems to have become a sort of social cult. Too bad. Not the way I remember it, .... or PRACTICE it.
A megachurch is defined in some of the modern religion periodicals I've read as 1000 or more members, so it sounds like this one...might...have just barely scrapped the threshold at their peak. Regardless, if they are down to 240 as the article states, then that's a loss of roughly 75% of the congregation in only two years.
The punchline, if you will, is probably that after that false prophet pastor did what he did, the queers didn’t attend, anyhow. Those people’s lifestyle is anti-God, anti-Word of God. Who, in their right mind would EXPECT them to attend? I guess the answer is in the phrase, “in their right mind.”
Among partisan media shills, Shep and Matt hardest hit.
Was this possibly triggered by thd pastor turning queer himself?
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